The present invention relates to a magnetic card reader for processing a thin and flexible magnetic card, such as an ATB (automatic ticketing/boarding) pass of an airline ticket.
In the ATB pass as an typical example of the thin and flexible magnetic card, a magnetic stripe for recording information is formed along one side thereof. Information stored in the magnetic stripe is updated if necessary. The ATB pass consists of a pass and a coupon, which are separated by a perforation. During the processing of the ATB pass, it is parted into the pass and the coupon along the perforation. For processing the ATB pass, a magnetic card reader is used which is provided with a magnetic head, a cutter unit and a stamper unit.
The magnetic card reader, since it must handle a long magnetic card, linearly transports a magnetic card by a card transporting means and reads information from the magnetic card by a magnetic head. To alter the information recorded in the magnetic card or to retry to read information from the magnetic card, the card transporting means is turned in the reverse direction to return the magnetic card to the entrance slit. To prevent such a situation that the returning magnetic card passes the magnetic head and part of the magnetic card is protruded from the entrance slit, a distance from the entrance slit to the magnetic head is longer than the entire length of the magnetic card. Further, the cutter unit and the stamper unit are disposed for the respective functions along the card transport path in the card insertion direction. Therefore, a long card transport path is required, and much time is taken for processing the magnetic card.
A curved transport path is used for transporting a magnetic card in the conventional magnetic card reader. The transport path is constructed with a drive belt and a follower belt, and forwardly and reversely transports a magnetic card in a manner that the card is nipped between the drive and follower belts. However, a transport speed of the magnetic card when it is transported in the forward direction is greatly different from that of the magnetic card when it is transported in the reverse direction. As a result, the operation of reading and writing information out of and to the magnetic card are inexact.
The magnetic card is parted into a pass and a coupon in the magnetic card reader, and the pass is held in the stacking unit, located at the exit slit of the card reader, and transferred to a passenger. The coupons are collected in the card reader. For parties of passengers or families, it is convenient to transfer the passes enbloc to each party or each family. In this respect, it is desirable for the magnetic card reader to have such a function as to transfer coupons enbloc.